Stockholm syndrome
by The mask you hide behind
Summary: Stockholm syndrome-noun: an emotional attachment to a captor formed by a hostage as a result of continuous stress, dependence, and a need to cooperate for survival. What will happen when Dr. Jonathan Crane faces his horrid childhood flashbacks during his days as a college professor and intern at Arkham Asylum. Slowly he drifts into unholy childhood memories.
1. Introduction

Introduction

"What do you see?" The masked doctor whispers while slowly proceeding to incinerate the fear toxin into one of the cold sweated patient's wrists, coming closer with a wide-eyed grin.

"I…I see spiders…they're crawling…everywhere…" The patient squeals chokingly from witnessing his biggest fears, witnessing the unknown fill the depths of his misguided soul.

The patient's eyes become wider and bloodshot; his arms struggle to pull loose from the restrains of the icy cold metal bed. The felon patient lies there reluctant, at the bottom of nowhere, at an abounded warehouse which Crane uses as his laboratory, where he experiments on his enemies or patients from Arkham Asylum.

Dr. Jonathan Crane smirks with enjoyment from his modest success, from the latest project's success. Lately he has been completely devoted to his work; to his fear toxins and gases. His hard work and quick progress turned out worthwhile, yet on the other hand his personal life is beginning to sink into his process of work at Arkham. From time to time he finds himself battling his nightmares of horrid childhood memories.

These dreams become worse and vivid from day-to-day, aiming to captivate him wholly.

Although he mastered the sources of fear he still has a long way until he will truly restrain his thoughts and mind. He slowly disintegrates, and drifts into his past memories.

* * *

"Pull me closer!" She shrieks with joy, compressing her soft, beefy lips with Crane's, making him recede and then forcing him to come back into her arms. Her silky long ginger hair lusters in the dim limelight of the elevator. Crane's penetrating cold blue eyes race from side to side as sliding his fingers to the bottom of her checkered black and red skirt.

"Don't stop…" The twenty year old woman demands as she lets out a high-pitched moan.

He lets out a slight moan too yet much more restrained and understandable, the young woman embraces her legs around him while the elevator slowly rides to the top floor of Gotham University. They flail from side to side, overlooking the pain that such a frolic rendezvous like this requires.

At this point they come closer to the last floor, breathing heavily, wishing that no one will catch them by surprise. Crane knows Gotham University like the back of his hand, he is proficient with the place and knows what he can do and what he cannot. Crane knows there aren't recording cameras in the elevators, only in the classes and corridors. In the elevator you can do whatever you wish for without it being documented.

No one knows his true identity or his intentions and so it shall stay, he can't afford to endanger his well obtained place in Gotham.

After the young woman fell for his tricks he warned her that if she will say anything or even mention his name in the frame of intercourse or romance he will take care of her personally, for his surprise nothing alarmed her too much. She was just urgent to get into his pants, nothing more he guessed.

The student had the thing for him for about a couple of months, only now when they met near the elevator, alone and without no one to judge them, the heat grew and with it their sexual appetite. Regularly Crane would never do such a thing, especially with a first year student of his, but something about her caught his attention; that she seemed to fear nothing.

"What do you fear of…?" Crane asks breathlessly, staring into her deep green eyes.

"Nothing…" she answers "why?" her tone becomes weary.

The Doctor grabs a firm hold on her thighs and tenderly kisses her neck, they are coming closer to the last floor while they finish quickly as he does her his way, like always, demanding and regained. She shrieks one last breathless moan into the conditioned elevator.

They tidy themselves, making it look like nothing happened on the surface.

The two stand there for a couple of more minutes and finally Crane hears a descent answer from the bubble-headed year one student.

"I am afraid of being unloved, of loving someone who doesn't love me back, but I never felt that way you know, every single man I had, loved me unconditionally…"

Crane grins at the view of the opening elevator.

"We can fix that quickly enough…" he whispers into her ear and exits the elevator.

She runs after him and grabs a hold on his arm, making him turn around in exhaustion.

"What the hell do you mean by that, ah, crane?"

"Nothing…nothing at all…" he giggles and walks further to his office, trying to get rid of her, being amused by the fact that he doesn't even know her name.

"Call me!" she yells from beyond while he marches further on, clapping his black pointy shoes on the marbled floor, his glasses slide down from the top of his nose bridge.

"Sure…" He smirks, walking further away into the darkness of his office, adjusting his eyeglasses, feeling satisfied by making another fear come true.


	2. Chapter 1

"Quiet class, sit down please…" Crane lectures his students with his authoritarian voice while entering one of the auditoriums at Gotham University.

He loathes most of his students, mainly because the most of them remind him of the ones which used to pick on him during his high school years.

The ones that he doesn't have the boiling urge to smother are the quiet ones, sitting at the back of the class, which only answer when needed.

When he isn't needed at the University he visits Arkham Asylum as an intern, yet he truly visits there for his experiments with his fear gases on patients.

Sometimes the students give him hell, as they do not comprehend the truthful of his lessons, they mostly argue about their foolish personal opinions, Crane stopped caring about that, he now only cares about his advantage.

Dr. Jonathan Crane places his heavy, black suitcase upon his wooden desk, trying to avoid any further eye contact with his obnoxious students.

He shuts the light and Projects slides of objects related to the basic fears of people.

The students quickly become silent and still, staring hopelessly at the disturbing slides. A slight grin appears upon Crane's pale face, the kind of grin which appears when he succeeds on making someone uncomfortable.

For Crane's good the lesson goes by quickly and with it his patience for his colleges and students.

He rushes outside to the compressed, full corridor; he creeps between students and unwanted teachers, for a second it reminds him of the torturing years of high school, when he used to hide from uninhibited bullies and old loved ones.

A flashback of the time when a group of guys slammed him roughly upon one of the lockers after gym class appears in his mind for a couple of seconds making him feel pure hatred.

He thought he was rid of those nightmarish and morbid memories yet lately they keep floating back up. He restrains himself by knowing that he got his revenge, at least on most of them. Yet still that time of taunts made him bitter to the very core, no wonder he took revenge on half of them by the power of his knowledge in fear.

"Dr. Crane, Dr. Crane!" A breathless young woman calls him from beyond, forcing him to turn around in hesitation.

"Yes?" He responds coldly to her unknown urge to speak with him.

The young woman is in fact one of his new students, she is part of the quiet ones whom sit at the back of the class without portraying a bold opinion or statement.

Immediately he spotted her heavy British accent and stable posture. The young woman is undeniably beautiful, yet strangely beautiful; the kind of beauty which raises eyebrows.

Crane doesn't fall for this kind of type yet she did, unintentionally catch his eye when he turned around to see what all the fuss is about, from the roar of the crowd she caught his attention. She seemed familiar from a faraway nightmare he once had.

"I was wondering if you would have the time to help me with the latest material, I am a bit stuck on the fear subject…" The wide-eyed student begs of him, embracing her portfolio, her hair dark brown and extremely short and eyes greenish and wide.

Crane glances at her, misunderstanding. She actually thinks he will spare his time to fully educate a student after class time, oh, he pity's her innocence and yet sees it as an easy target for that and such matters.

"Look, I need to get somewhere else. Maybe we will discuss this tomorrow at class. Now I don't have the time for it." The Doctor neglects her harshly, and finishes the small talk with a duplicate smirk. She reminds him of an old lover which had let him down in every possible way, and he hates her for that, he hates her for bringing that up.

His eyes haunt her while he backs away, incinerating into her flesh, she enjoys it, she likes his mysteriousness and she's eager to know more, yet she still doesn't know what and with who she's dealing with.

Crane arrives quickly and safely to his office at Arkham Asylum, there he opens a yellow folder with the names of his students, finding the page with the details of the young British woman.

"Alice Blackwood…" he whispers with agony and stares at her picture, ripping it to shreds, he feels like a seventeen year old high school student again and revenge flows in his blood once more.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

They push him with laughter to the boy's lavatory, making him trip and fall to the checkered cold floor, near the white cubicles.

Collin the leader of the group pulls his long black hair and ferociously smashes his head back to the icy cold floor. Crane begins to bleed from his nose and mouth while feeling utterly hopeless, his glasses also broken by being slammed to the solid floor.

The heartless bullies grab him by his legs and quickly push him into one of the empty cubicles; there they drown his head in one of the toilets, soaking him completely.

His previous bruises sting and hurt even more. Crane squeals from the ache of the injury and begs of them to let him go, yet they disapprove and continue to torture him, only now with taunts and hurtful nicknames.

"Where is your mommy, ah, Scarecrow?" Collin teases him and continues to grab him by the neck while his blood drips on the lavatory floor.

Crane cannot control his feelings and he bursts into crying, especially by the fact that they mentioned his mother. He is so skinny and weak, he can barely hold on to his own self.

His sobs become worse while he tries without success to get out of Collins hold.

Yet Collin only chuckles with the rest of his friends, staring deeply into Crane's morbid big blue eyes.

Dr. Jonathan Crane wakes up in cold sweat. "_It was only a dream_…" He relaxes himself.

It wasn't only a dream; it was a long forgotten memory of when he was a high school student.

It's 2 am and the only thing he can barely do is go over his Arkham Asylum patient's portfolio and prepare a descent cup of coffee.

* * *

Crane sits uncomfortably on his arm-chair in his office at Arkham Asylum.

He pinches the top of his nose bridge with concentration, trying to vanish away his painful flashbacks from his crowded mind.

The flashbacks of childhood memories are a burden to his progress at work and emotional feelings. He cannot continue with these nauseating memories creeping up on him now and then.

That student, Alice Blackwell, sharpened his memories into vivid nightmares. Every time he looks at her, whether at the hallways of Gotham University or at class, he instantly becomes young again, careless, anxious, fearful and mostly vengeful.

A loud obnoxious knock is heard on the door. He can already guess what's awaiting him.

"Come in please." Crane requests frigidly, turning his armchair to face the door, stroking his luscious hair with his hands, adjusting his eyeglasses once more.

"Hello Jonathan…" a high-pitched voice merges into the office breaking the stiff silence from before.

Dr. Charlie Knight stands there, waiting for Crane to say something measurable back.

Yet instead he points at her to sit in front of him. She shuts the door behind her and smiles wickedly at the numb doctor. From the time they were psychology year one students at Gotham University he despised her, she was always too extroverted, too overrated by the other professors. And now she is also teaching at the University.

"What are you doing here?" Crane asks sharply, not hiding his confusion by the fact that she came to his office at Arkham and not waited to talk to him at the University.

"The psychology faculty at the university sent me to investigate you." Dr. Knight declares, making Crane grin from his incoherence and nervousness.

"I don't understand, investigate what exactly?" He raises an eyebrow and takes a sip from his drink.

"Jenny, Jenny was the name of the girl you played with," Knight begins to explain.

Crane thinks deeply and doesn't recall a girl named Jenny. He continues to look at Dr. Knight with befuddlement, running his fingers through his hair.

"Does something involving an elevator and a year one student of mine mean something?" Crane almost chokes on his drink and glances at her without showing his real feelings.

Dr. Knight dumps a white folder on Crane's desk, staring at him with disgust as he opens it carefully.

The folder has images of Crane leaving an elevator with a young student, it's blurry yet he can notice it's the two of them after that "incident" a few months ago, he already thought it belonged to the past.

"So… it's me walking out of an elevator, I don't understand what's to investigate?" He laughs and takes another drink.

Dr. Knight stares at him with her cold, gray eyes, returning the white folder to her briefcase.

"Don't you have something better to do, Doctor Knight, or are you digging under the rug?" Crane smirks and stands up, turning to face the half-opened window, hinting her she isn't wanted here and that he needs her to leave.

Dr. Knight stands up too, coming closer to Crane. As creeping from the side, Knight hurries to assure Crane she isn't joking.

"Jenny herself told me about you, she hinted something about intercourse, you now that's violating the University's laws and conventions..."

Crane becomes indignant and impatient. First of all he warned Jenny, so when he comes for her; the forms of perplexed or flurried aren't useful. He isn't frightened by Doctor Knight's sayings; she needs to worry for herself.

"I know everything Doctor Crane…so you better send your dismissal letter." Knight continues to annoy him with her blubbering.

"You don't know anything; in fact you know nothing about me." Crane giggles cunningly and returns to his armchair as staring at Knight. She backs away.

"I mean it Jonathan…you are heading into big trouble."

"Please, call me Doctor Crane…" the doctor continues to laugh in amusement. She really doesn't know what she's getting into, having the nerve to come with such charges, even if they are true.

Knight heads to the door and Crane opens the door for her,

"Charlie, are you the only one who knows about this…or are there more involved?" Crane whispers and slides his fingers down to the door knob, wraps it tightly, restrains his anger.

"Just me and Jenny…but tomorrow morning it's going to the press, and finally the University will know what I know…why?" Dr. Knight grins, not knowing it will cost her.

"Nothing, Goodbye Dr. Knight…" Crane says his farewell and shuts the door behind him.

He chuckles and returns to his desk, knowing a long-long night heads him.

* * *

The sunlight beams from throughout the shutters, blinding Crane's eyes, forcing him to wake up.

He hastily walks to the living room; there he opens the television to see the headlights in Gotham's daily news_: "A well-known Professor, Charlie Knight and one of her students were murdered yesterday night from an unknown source…"_

Crane smirks and prepares a fresh cup of coffee, feeling satisfied and empowered.

Yesterday night he also burned all the evidence Dr. Knight had which hinted of his doings.

He remembers their screams, their tortures; know they echo through his mind, helping him forget his childhood pain. No one messes with him, no one.

He walks to his room and opens a secret passage in his wardrobe; there he takes out his mask, stroking it repeatedly.

"I missed you scarecrow..." He whispers, placing the mask upon his face, searching for further victims.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

He grabs a hold of the silence in the forest, cherishing its brilliance, its everlasting shadows and light. His hands trace the trails of roses which grow from beneath, he smells their sickening sweet fragrance as becoming nausea from lusting for the upcoming. Finally he will meet the one he loved, the one which ripped his heart apart, blackened his most arousing feelings.

He used to write her lullabies; he used to sing them to himself when he couldn't fall asleep. Mostly he would run away at midnight to this, exact forest. He escaped from the stench of the farm he grew up in, everything about it made him indignant.

He licks his lips with appetite as thinking about her, reminding himself how much he lusts for her most simplest touch, her flesh against his remind him long, lost, rainy nights at the farm-house.

He remembers her long velvety black hair against his exposed chest, his blue eyes sinking into her gray ones, blinking with wonder at the starry night sky, her fingers trailing under his shirt, making him smile with pleasure.

"I love you." She once whispered as giving him shivers down his body, the first time he heard those words referring to him.

Yet she let him down, in every possible way. His heart ripped apart when he saw her with another guy, the guy that picked on him, that taunted him and crashed him into a million little pieces. And for that he hated her, despised her and eluded his every good thought about her. She never truly loved him back; actually she was part of the ones who made his days at school insufferable. He wants his revenge, and he wants her keenest forgiveness pleaded and intolerable, like she made him feel.

"Come out; come out, wherever you are!" Crane's sayings echo in the deserted forest, rebalancing its natural calmness. "Samantha, I'm not going to hurt you…"

"Let's play a little game which I like to call, revenge," Crane teases the misled young woman.

"Shall we?" he chuckles, and picks up parted roses from the ground, stroking his soft cheeks with them.

"Roses are red, violets are blue, fear is your end, I am coming for you…" Crane's voice brings shivers down her spine. He marches quickly.

"Leave me alone!" Samantha cries from the center of the forest, trying to find a way to escape from this bizarre madness. She's falling, sinking into Jonathan Crane's playground of never-ending tricks and illusions.

"Poor little Samantha, lost her way…stay there and I'll come and save you!"

"Stop it! Just leave me!" Samantha's sobs become heavier and much louder.

Crane arrives to the area where Samantha is staying. 'Foolish girl,' he thinks, she brought him right into her hiding place, she's so oblivious, so pathetic.

He finds her and grabs a firm hold on her arm, she yells with horror, staring into his obscure eyes. He lets her loose, she begins to run yet he pulls her roughly into his feeble, thin arms.

Crane wraps his arms tightly around Samantha's effeminate body. He smells her fragrance, it makes him befuddled for a second, and then he comes back to reality, continuing to make her scream.

"I hate you for all you've made me feel, now we are older, and still you haven't changed a bit." Crane begins to explain the reason of his revenge although it's already clear to her.

"I tricked you into coming here to reconcile our differences…now I will gain my sweet revenge." He kisses her neck as she kicks the ground with her legs, trying to get loose from his touch.

"Let me go!" she shrieks.

"Do you remember that night, at the farm-house?" Crane asks, reminiscing her the past.

"The first time I made love, you told me you loved me…and then one day without a word you vanished away and went to another guy…"

She cries hopelessly as he whispers every word and word into her ear, their lips close enough to collide with a kiss.

"Not only did you betray me, you also made me suffer at school, remember what you did at prom?" he laughs from the fact that she can't do nothing to defend herself.

"Remember?" he yells powerfully, making her cry hysterically, her head resting on his chest, wetting his shirt.

"Jonathan, I am sorry, I really am. The past is the past and I changed, we all did." Samantha cries yet Crane cannot trust a word she says.

She lies to him even now; she can't face the truth of what she was once. She was always around when the guys at school tormented him, and she watched it all happen without raising a hand and giving him the least support he craved for, by someone who once told him that will never do him any harm.

He grips her neck and pushes her to his side as he pulls out from his bag his turbid looking mask and places it upon his face, he turns around before she can see him with it.

"What…what are you doing?" Samantha mumbles with disputation of his doings.

"Remember that nickname you guys used to call me at school?" Crane whispers his question, tightening the mask to his pale face, feeling tempestuous with adrenalin.

"Scarecrow…?" her lips quiver the saying, making her legs weak and unbalanced.

"Over here!" he laughs, turning around and spreading his fear gas into the air. He thought that this meeting will be much more and romantic, but he never knows what will be his next move.

Samantha screams and cries while falling to the muddy ground, witnessing her biggest fear in front of her vacant gray eyes. Crane only stares at her with pity.

Her biggest fear was him, was crane becoming scarecrow and not nothing more, she saw it happen once when they were high school students. It flatters him and yet makes him eerie. He feels satisfied and yet hollow, something that didn't happen often.

Crane doesn't say another word but vanishes with the wind of the forest back to his current home in Gotham, leaving her lost in the middle of nowhere, near his childhood home of disturbing memories.


	5. Chapter 4

"S…S…_Samantha_, d…don't go!" Crane stutters in gloom from a distant dream.

His light sleep sharply awakens with a powerful, loud scream.

Reluctantly, Crane lies on his bed while staring obscurely at the white, smooth ceiling, trying to recover from his hellish nightmares and lack of sleep.

His cold eyes wander around the wide, sterilized bedroom, searching for the clock to show him the current hour, he must have awakened during dawn for a slight shadowy, pink-orange luminescence from outside filters through the windows. He becomes solicitous.

On the modern wall clock the floating numbers show 5: am. It's the third time he's woken up from his sleep tonight.

Quickly he searches for his eyeglasses which are neatly placed upon a desk near his bed.

He drifts into the near bathroom, sighing heavily at the sight of his exhausted reflection in the mirror. He hastily washes his pale face with icy cold water, managing to wake himself up from his ongoing tiredness. 'Insomnia' he thinks, breathing slowly, calming himself for he vaguely knows what's going on. He walks in circles for a couple of minutes.

He slaps himself lightly on the face, "Stop it Jonathan…" he whispers, staring vacantly at the outside view from the window. He returns to bed, managing to fall asleep once again.

He needs to forget _her_, and everything she represents.

* * *

"You called me?"

"Come in please, Alice…" Crane gestures the young, certain student.

She hesitates, entering Crane's office slowly, over thinking her steps.

Alice becomes nervous, especially when she is around Crane's presence, something about him makes her hate him and yet at the same time adore his very existence.

She harshly tries to make herself comfortable while sitting on one of the armchairs placing in front of Crane. She waits for him to speak while staring at the ground, finding it hard to look into his scorching eyes.

"Are you intimidated by me, Miss Blackwell?" Crane mocks her with a cocky voice, making her feel even more uncomfortable.

She hardly looks at him, swallowing her embarrassment. "Of course not, doctor."

Crane grins with pure pity, not even needing to analyze her clear perplexity.

"So…I called you to discuss your struggle with the current material," Crane cuts the tension,

"What don't you specifically understand?" He looks up at her, trying to focus on the subject and not on her good looks. She's pleasurable to watch. Her short dark brown hair covers half of her forehead, making her big green eyes more noticeable and penetrating; she reminds him so much of Samantha, her speaking, posture, everything.

"The whole fear subject, especially the part with the psychological experiments with it, it fascinates me…I just want to know more." Alice mumbles while playing with her necklace.

Her presence is a burden for Crane yet a lust, a frustrating dilemma.

The doctor thinks deeply, trying to figure out what to do with her, at first hand he thinks of letting her go, keep her afar. And she also could be a perfect tool in his latest experiments at the abounded warehouse near Arkham.

_'She wants to know more doctor,' _Crane smirks from the thought of actually recognizing her to his experiments with the inmates and patients. He craves for a new victim, for someone who will make him delighted to experiment with, to delusion and trick, someone just like _her._

She isn't precisely the one he thought of when he planned his experiments, yet she will be easy to fool and deceive, not to mention to convince to become his fresh new game tool.

"Maybe I could come to see your work at Arkham Asylum…" Alice asks carefully, continuing to play with her necklace from her anxiousness.

And she falls right into his twisted game. The doctor can only smile with amusement now; she caught herself right into his playground, where he is himself with no limitations.

Yet still he cannot trust her, he needs to recognize her as a trustful being, as someone maybe with the same thoughts, he is still skeptic about her.

"Fine…I myself am still an intern there, yet it isn't a concern for you to join."

Alice finally breathes in relief, for the first time this afternoon she can truly let herself go, loosen up. Still the relationship between the two is far from close, and so it shall stay.

"I will see you tomorrow morning; you can come at eight." Crane instructs her.

"Thank you." Alice whispers shyly, quickly leaving his office and into the crowded corridor, swallowed by the mass of people.

Crane smirks as turning his armchair to face the window. He feels satisfied, as if something important is ahead.

He is back to business.


End file.
